jethrthisw

Letters, reviews and commentaries for Jethro Tull’s This Was album.

Letter of the Week – “I never owned a copy that had as much bottom end along with vocals that seem to jump out of my speakers.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Jethro Tull Available Now

One of our good customers had this to say about some Hot Stampers he purchased a while back:

Hey Tom,   

Just a quick note to express my complete satisfaction with my latest purchase from Better Records.

I just received my copy of the WHS of Jethro Tull’s This Was LP. Needless to say, I have several copies of this album, both domestic and UK versions. One is a Pink Label UK which I purchased from you a while back*.

I was so completely blown away at how much better this LP sounds. Both are great, but this one is simply unbelievable.
I never owned a copy that had as much bottom end along with vocals that seem to jump out of my speakers.

Thank you again for your work finding these superior copies of albums I never thought could sound this good!

Hope to purchase again soon,
Regards
D B

Dennis,

So glad you enjoyed this copy as much as we did, and you even had a Pink Label to play against it, a record not many audiophiles own.

Stand Up and Benefit are the same way, the original pressings are not the way to go, but try telling that to the average audiophile who covets only first pressings.

They can read labels and they know which are the earliest ones, but they rarely have the equipment and the listening skills to know that the right reissues are CLEARLY better, something you heard right from the start I suspect.

UPDATE 2024:

Allow me to apologize for the patently unfair nature of the above characterization.

The truth is much more complicated than my remarks would lead you to believe.

Most audiophiles, even those with high-quality equipment and reasonably good listening skills, simply do not have the resources — time and money — to acquire another half-dozen pressings of This Was in the hopes that one of them might beat the original they struggled to find and had most likely paid good money for.

Our story for this album makes it clear just how hard it is to discover the pressings that are clearly superior to the ones most collectors and audiophiles have been led to believe are the best.

Not one out of a hundred has the resources to do what it takes to find the best pressings for more than a few dozen titles.

There is, however, one group of dedicated music lovers that has been able to achieve success in this regard for literally thousands of titles.

That group, you will not be surprised to learn, is made up of the ten or so individuals who work at Better Records.

Without a dedicated staff and a major league record-buying budget, it would simply be impossible to find out what we have been able to find out since we did the first Hot Stamper shootout two decades ago.

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Years Ago We Badly Misjudged the Recording Quality of Tull’s Debut

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Jethro Tull Available Now

A clear case of live and learn.

We listed a White Hot copy of This Was in 2008 on the Island pink label and noted at the time:

Be forewarned: this ain’t Stand Up or Aqualung. I don’t think you’ll be using any copy of This Was to demo your stereo, because the recording has its share of problems. That said, this record sounds wonderful from start to finish and will make any fan of this music a VERY happy person. We guarantee you’ve never heard this album sound better, or your money back.

Now we know a couple of things that we didn’t back in 2008.

1). This album is a lot better sounding than we gave it credit for years ago. It’s not perfect by any means but it is much better than the above comments might lead you to believe.

We chanced upon an exceptional sounding copy of the album in 2017 or so, and that taught us something new about the record:

2). The Pink Label pressings are not the best way to go on this album.

Once we heard the exceptional copy alluded to above, we played it against our best Pink Label copies and it was simply no contest.

In 2008 we still had a lot to learn. We needed to do more research and development, which of course we are doing regularly with Classic Rock records, our bread and butter and the heart of our business.

We do them as often as is practical, considering how difficult it is to find copies with audiophile quality playing surfaces.

Nine years later, we felt we finally had a proper understanding on the various pressings of This Was. It goes like this:

The Pink Label original British pressings can be good, but they will never win a shootout up against copies with these stampers (assuming you have more than one copy — any record can have the right stampers and the wrong sound, we hear it all the time. Beware of small sample sizes).

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Jethro Tull – This Was

More Jethro Tull

More British Blues Rock

  • You’ll find solid Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER on both sides of this British Island pressing of Tull’s debut album – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Side two is very close in sound to our Shootout Winner – you will be shocked at how big and powerful the sound is
  • We’ve only had a handful of copies go up since 2013 – it’s tough to find these vintage UK pressings in clean condition with this kind of sound
  • Guaranteed to soundly trounce any Pink Label Island original you may have heard – these are the Hot Stampers
  • Melody Maker thoroughly recommended the album in 1968 for being “full of excitement and emotion” and described the band as a blues ensemble “influenced by jazz music” capable of setting “the audience on fire.” — Wikipedia
  • If you’re a fan of Ian and his band, this UK reissue originally recorded in 1968 belongs in your collection
  • More reissue pressings that, in our experience, handily beat the best originals can be found here. Skeptical of that claim? Please order this record so that you can play if for yourself. If it does not beat your original (or any other pressing you may have), we will pay the domestic shipping to return it and happily refund 100% of your money. What have you got to lose?

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